This page is part of the WebCom Web Publishing Guide. It discusses limitations affecting the design of HTML documents and provides tips on working around them.

The way images are made available can have a significant effect on the usefulness of a page to people with low speed connections. Whether an image is displayed within the page itself, is available through a hotlink, or by clicking on a smaller version of the image can significantly affect the usability of a page.

Pages containing large images take a significant amount of time to transfer on a slow connection. Even if the images included are small, a page may take a while to transfer completely if there are a significant number of them, since each image is transferred by a separate connection to the WWW server. Less "intelligent" browsers re-transfer an image each time it is included on a page, slowing down the process even more. This can render a page inaccessible to people unwilling to either wait or turn off their automatic display of images by their browser.

The method most people use to access the Internet is dialing up to a remote computer system and connecting with a modem. A page filled with graphics, even though it may look really nice on a high speed connection, or on a machine at home, will be unusable to many people, unless they configure their browser to not display graphics within a page (something which most people are reluctant to do).

Use only small images within pages themselves, and provide users with a choice allowing them choose whether or note to transfer them. One typical practice is to use small clickable images, letting people "preview" images before transferring them.

Limit the length of a page to two or three screens at most and avoid long unbroken blocks of text. Studies show that people have a much shorter attention span when dealing with computerized text. The medium is much better suited to linking short blocks of text to each other and setting up information to allow people to pursue particular topics at different levels of depth, depending on their interest.

Most people are unaware of the commands that enable their browser to display when a document was last modified. In addition, the nature of hypertextual documents make it easy for the creator to lose track of this, so sign and date time sensitive documents. This will tell visitors, and you, how up to date the information and links on your pages is, and make maintaining them easier.

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